Lorana (hello) family and friends!
This week was filled with lots of learning and feeling and seeing God's place in my life for sure. To start things out I found that going to class here at the MTC (which is like 9 hours a day) is getting more enjoyable. I love my teachers and 6 other missionaries I get to be with. We are all going to Tahiti. There are two other classes going to Tahiti making a total of 20 elders and 6 sisters being sent there on December 1. So this week (from Wed on, because I count weeks in terms of p-days), we found out about some changes. My district is getting a new teacher. We are saying goodbye to Ormetua H (who is from Tahiti). He is moving on to teach the new missionaries who already know french. We are so sad to see him go, but c'est la vie. We will still see him in the building. He brought us brownies on Monday and it was so nice to have food, not from the cafeteria. Somehow I managed to get a little sick this week, but it wasn't that bad. I still went to class and everything. I just wasn't 100% feeling well.
Here is a miracle for you. Sunday I woke up and was starting to get overwhelmed for how long we are here because we have been here 3 weeks and have fantastic 7 more to go! It is great, but Sunday morning I was wondering how that would be possible. So I prayed. I prayed that not only I could have a great day, but that it would be the best day I have had in the MTC! After I said that prayer in the morning I was really trying to change my attitude but needed God's help for sure. God answered my prayer and I am just loving it here more than before I had that little hump in my day. I sat through the morning session of conference and tried to listen to what I needed to do, but got nothing. UNTIL... the closing song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They sang "How Firm a Foundation." The words "I'll strengthen Thee help thee and cause thee to stand" just uplifted my soul. I can feel the power of those words right now. God is there for me. He always has been. I felt the comfort and love I needed. Sure enough, events followed that resulted in a prayer being answered. minutes after that I heard my first name in the cafeteria (which is unusual bc no one really knows it), sure enough, it was my roommate, Hermana Albach. I knew she was in the MTC but hadn't thought about bumping into her for a while. She was a like a big sister to me when I roomed with her. I just gave her a huge hug and thought about what a tender mercy that was. God is so good.
Another highlight of the week was seeing one of my friends from GA, Herman Ashley Cain who is going to Washington and Hermana Kaitlyn Albach who was my roommate at BYU and is headed to Argentina. It is great how God puts people in our life sometimes just so we can feel joy. I have truly felt that.
Tuahine Arbuckle and I assist (assist because the Holy Spirit really teaches) in teaching an "investigator" (it is really Oremtua H.) named Vetea. We went into our first lesson with him this week and had a member present and we were small talking in Tahitian and things were going ok. At one point though I realized the feeling in the room just got awkwarder and awkwarder. It is like we feel off a cliff at one point. Aita maitai (not good) for when you are trying to have the spirit to teach. Yeah. Well, this was the day I was sick and just in all honestly a part of me didn't even want to teach a lesson, even adding to the aita ino part. When the conversation had just about hit the breaking point, I had the thought, "when in doubt, just testify." Well, that is what happened. I tried to share with Veata how much God loves him and his family and wants them to follow Jesus Christ, from that moment on that lesson, was on the uphill. We got another appointment and soft committed him to baptism and had the member present bare testimony. It was an ok lesson, but we both left super upset at ourselves. So frustrating. We got over it and learned. Come to find out our teacher, who role plays as the investigator, was about to just pause the lesson so we could figure out what we were doing. Another win for the holy ghost!! The next lesson we had with Veatea was much better. We only had 15 minutes and no notes, so we really had to rely on the Spirit. We went in there more focused on the person and the lesson had a huge difference from the first time. It was definitely because we went in there with not the focus of an agenda we had to fulfill. We really just wanted to show our love for Vetea and so we relied on the spirit. It was great. Tuahine Arbuckle and I were so happy afterwards and it was a good moment.
The Sunday night devotional to follow was amazing. Vai (which vai means to exist in Tahitian) Sikahema, who is a Tongan and NBC sports newscaster in PA, gave the devotional. It was soo relieving just to hear from someone funny. He didn't want us to take notes. I literally laughed a ton from it and it was a HUGE stress reliever. Sometimes you just need to laugh. He talked about member missionary work. Our efforts aren't in vain if they don't end up in a baptism. Keep going on, the world needs good people. You can be on of them.
On a more funny note. The phrase "a special treat" is so funny here in the MTC. Leaders use it to denote that something slightly out of the normal is going to happen. For example, we always sing prelude songs before a devotional and they are always from the hymn book. Well, last week we sang "A child's Prayer" which is a children's song. I love it, but they use that phrase to get us excited. haha. We are so in a routine anything gets us excited. Another example, my companion and I were going to gym last night and could see the moon over the walkway covering, so now we refer to that as a special treat. We find many special treats in our day. haha. You just got to love the MTC.
Other new is that we are getting new roommates so we will have 6 sisters in one room. The sisters in my district and I were not thrilled about this. I love sister missionaries, but not sharing a room with a ton. Ok, so this is an opportunity for us. We decided to make their beds and put candy on them. We complain about 6 sisters in a room where the people in Tahiti don't even have rooms. Oh first world probs! As Sister Kofford always says, "we can do hard things... WITH A SMILE." It will be great. I think they are not from the US and going to Tahiti with us. I hope things are going well in all your lives. I love this work and am so honored to get to be a part of it. Thank you for your prayers and Dear Elders. I can't put into words how good it is to hear from loved ones. It adds a huge upliftment to my days here at the MTC!
Here is for another week as a missionary!!! YAYAY!! Thanks for your support and love. Really, though, I love all my family and friends sooooo much!!
QOW: "The decision to change is yours and yours alone." - Elder Katcher of the 70 (who my district actually got to meet last week. He severed a mission in Tahiti and just spoke in the LDS general Conference)
Tahitian Word of the Week: faaoaoahia It means party. "faa" means "to make" + oaoa means happy + hia means ness. So the word party in Tahitian actually means "to make happiness."
-Tuahine Campbell
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